Quote from: Black Vulmea;778250the assumption that unified mechanics are inherently easier to learn doesn't hold up as a truism, as evidenced by gamers with experience with both who reject unified systems for their complexity

Welllll that doesn't follow really – unified mechanics such as in 3.x are easier to learn BUT can get unwieldy, fiddly, & unintuitive as you build on those mechanics over the course of many levels and add more stacking modifiers, etc., and that is the main reason I've heard that gamers with experience with both – which means they've already learned both, right, so the initial learning curve is no longer an issue – anyway, that's why they reject it. And I tend to agree. You gotta watch unified mechanics to make sure they don't have unintended consequences.

Of course there is also "I just like all the separate tables, they're fun" which is a legitimate perspective.

Quote from: Marleycat;778235Or maybe play a version of the game less then 25 years old? Hmm...I think I'll take door #2 Monte.

So you admit your main criteria of judgement is how old it is rather then what it says or does.  Ok, at least you admit it.

Quote from: Marleycat;778235The truth is addition is far more natural to me then subtraction and I'm in the majority. Not that's it's hard but the former is quicker.

Since there's no subtraction involved in a chart, your logical fallacy of appeal to authority isn't going to fly.

Quote from: Marleycat;778235@MostlyJoe, and that's the purpose. To get people playing not epeening about some version published before I was born!

If epeening is what you don't want to be doing, you may want to re-examine your posting history, as really, that's most of it.

Quote from: Old Geezer;778258I thought this was a thread about opinions about 5e.  I have mine, other people have theirs.

You forgot the part about where yours weren't allowed.  Didn't you get the memo?  You're getting in the way of the new program, Geezer, you must be silenced and shouted down doncha know?

Quote from: CRKrueger;778264You forgot the part about where yours weren't allowed.  Didn't you get the memo?  You're getting in the way of the new program, Geezer, you must be silenced and shouted down doncha know?

* looks around * I didn't know I'd wandered into The Banning Place...

I

Quote from: CRKrueger;778262So you admit your main criteria of judgement is how old it is rather then what it says or does.  Ok, at least you admit it.

Since there's no subtraction involved in a chart, your logical fallacy of appeal to authority isn't going to fly.

If epeening is what you don't want to be doing, you may want to re-examine your posting history, as really, that's most of it.

I just learn from the best sir. (You do understand I could careless about your piss poor hyperbole). Play or not already and given you live in a city I will never move back to, who cares?  I know I will be houseruling some things as will you and I bet some will be on totally different areas because what we consider Dnd is different but I bet we agree 5e is pretty easy, fast, robust and easy to alter without breaking.

Quote from: Old Geezer;778236How about PLAYING a game?

Or is only new, good?

I expect to play 5E quite a bit.  My initial impression is it is like English as a language ( which stole words liberally, and sometimes even chased good ones down back alleys to mug them) only with gaming ideas.

Many of the "that's neat ideas" popped up there, fom sources as diverse as Castles and Crusades, OD&D, 3.5 D&D, 4E D&D, ACK, AD&D, and even things like Arrows of Indra, I suspect.  

Not surprising there are some good features!  :-)

Too bad the WotC forums are blah, here is nice though. I don't care if anyone likes 5e or not, at some point it is always pointless caring about what other people care about. Like it, don't like it, blah. Whatever.

Quote from: Imp;778261Welllll that doesn't follow really – unified mechanics such as in 3.x are easier to learn . . .

That's hairsplitting.

Quote from: Votan;778289I expect to play 5E quite a bit.  My initial impression is it is like English as a language ( which stole words liberally, and sometimes even chased good ones down back alleys to mug them) only with gaming ideas.

Many of the "that's neat ideas" popped up there, fom sources as diverse as Castles and Crusades, OD&D, 3.5 D&D, 4E D&D, ACK, AD&D, and even things like Arrows of Indra, I suspect.  

Not surprising there are some good features!  :-)

It may well have good features.

I'm just annoyed by the near-universal reaction that I'm somehow wrong for not wanting to buy it.  A thread about "let's all talk about how awesome this game is" is not the same as a thread about "what is your opinion."

Quote from: Old Geezer;778271* looks around * I didn't know I'd wandered into The Banning Place...

No Banning, but the rest of the shit sure applies lately. :banghead:

Quote from: Marleycat;778272I bet we agree 5e is pretty easy, fast, robust and easy to alter without breaking.

That we do. :hatsoff:  
You used to live in Sacramento?  I'm sorry.  It's an ok town, really, but it ain't L.A.

Quote from: Old Geezer;778297I'm just annoyed by the near-universal reaction that I'm somehow wrong for not wanting to buy it.  A thread about "let's all talk about how awesome this game is" is not the same as a thread about "what is your opinion."

Well to be fair, this thread is actually 'My impressions of the 5e PHB', so posting your opinion of the Basic PDF is pretty off topic to begin with.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;778250Now, all of this is a nice attempt at misdirection, but getting back to the point at which I joined this conversation, the assumption that unified mechanics are inherently easier to learn doesn't hold up as a truism, as evidenced by gamers with experience with both who reject unified systems for their complexity. And that's without getting into the fact that, for most of its history, the World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game did not have unified mechanics.'

Uh. I wasn't arguing that point. I was saying that teaching a game, unified mechanics or no, is something that isn't always automatic from a rule book. Experience at the table, rules clarifications, and sometimes teaching core concepts of the mechanics is needed. And until the last day decade or so a lot of the books I read only glanced over these topics. It's true we have a number of decades of experience and the overall development/writing culture has improved from that experience.

So, let's pretend is fine. Let's pretend with rules, ya people still seem to trip over how that works. Even at modern tables.

But that doesn't invalidate Old Geezer's take on complexity, or Marly's take on ease of use. MY point was they both are valid, but are coming from different points in the timeline.

I cut my teeth on AD&D and Palladium systems, unified mechanics are just another way to play to me. I had my GURPS/HERO/Tri-Stat phase. Don't go attributing mechnics bias at me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;778212The truth is, one you like, one you don't. One is old, therefore inferior, one is newer therefore superior apparently regardless of any fact.

Good design doesn't age (Although might not be universally applicible). THAC0 is a good design - it condenses an entire system to one number without loss of data. That's good stuff.

Quote from: Old Geezer;778147Hope y'all have fun.

I downloaded the free PDF version and looked it over.

Too many damn rules.  It's 100 pages just for the "quickstart player's guide" or whatever they call it.

Original OD&D was 110 half-size pages, and even granting it needed more descriptive material it could still be brought in at 150 digest-size pages.

I agree with Dave Arneson.  "Games nowadays have too many rules."

Theres alot of extraneous stuff in there. 5 pages of intro. The "example" fluff probably eats up another page or two of you moved it all to one page.

The real page eaters are the races Dwarf takes up 2 3/4ths pages, Elf takes up 2 1/4th, Halfling 1 1/2, Human 2 and a freaking half pages!

Classes eats up 13 pages since now every class has more goodies that need explaining.

9 pages of personality and background.

Pages and pages of description of equipment.

6 pages devoted to ability scores.

Cut out all the dross and you've probably got down to about 70-80 pages

Now to be fair here. The Basic so far is more like a combination of Book 1 and book 3. Or the Greyhawk book? Not sure where the Thief got added. And Basic covers a broader equipment and spell list.

One of my personal projects is to pair Basic down to its... er... basics.